Police were called to the Westfield shopping centre 386 times within the first three months of opening.

Out of the attendances, 26 were either false alarms or not recorded as crimes, leaving 360 offences from October 20 to January 12.

The majority of the figures, obtained by the Freedom of Information Act, are for theft, which make up 276 of the figure - about 76 per cent of all the crimes at the mall in White City.

Most were shoplifting, while pickpockets and stolen bikes made up the next highest amounts of thefts.

Out of the remaining crimes violence against the person came second highest with 42 incidents, 15 of these were for assault with injury and 16 for harassment. There was one arrest for possession of an offensive weapon.

A dozen frauds were committed as well as 10 burglaries, one of them in a home, the rest in other buildings.

And eight people were caught for possession of drugs and five incidents of criminal damage were recorded.

Borough Commander Kevin Hurley said: "It's the largest shopping mall in Europe with hundreds of outlets; an increase in shoplifting is exactly what we expected, and a small amount of our officers' time is taking up dealing with these issues.

The public order and violence against the person are also to be expected when you get thousands of people coming together. To date none of these offences are what we would call serious."

A Westfield spokeswoman said: "We believe that these figures overstate the extent of crime in the shopping centre. No burglaries have been reported to us and we have only recorded a very small number of crimes against a person.

"With more than 8 million visitors to date Westfield London has proved a resounding success and we take a determined attitude to ensuring the safety and security of members of the public visiting our centre.""